


Blown on the Steel Breeze

by groveofbones



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dieselpunk, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to People Who Make Out Angrily, First Kiss, Honestly I Just Want Phasma to Have a Suit of Mech Armor, M/M, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-04 21:57:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16797838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groveofbones/pseuds/groveofbones
Summary: Aboard the enormous, tank-treaded, rolling war machine known as the Finalizer, there is only room for one commander, at least as far as General Hux is concerned. Unfortunately, now that Lord Ren has showed up, there are two. Tensions quickly reach the boiling point. And that's before a Resistance trap leaves Hux and Ren trapped underground.Dieselpunk AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One day, while scrolling through a random set of tags, I noticed that "Dieselpunk" was a possible tag. Then this story idea hit me in the brain like a freight train, complete with dieselpunk version of the Force. This was also supposed to be a shorter one-shot. Oops.
> 
> I hope you like it!

The sun was dragging itself with slow, malevolent, brain-numbing heat up through the sky toward noon. It illuminated the hills to the east, dead and gray and dotted with industrial foundries; the plains in the center, flat desert occasionally broken by ridges of bare rock and the mouths of complicated underground cave systems; and the mountains to the west, craggy and forested and topped with white snow. 

Until recently, the plains had been held by the Republic, but over the course of a year of fighting, the First Order had poured out of the hills and forced them back, back, and back to take shelter in the strongholds of the mountains. Now, all that was left of the Republic in the plains were scattered pockets calling themselves the Resistance, and the plains were crisscrossed with the tracks of First Order landships. 

With a belch of thick black smoke and a deep-voiced rumble of engines, the Finalizer, the largest and greatest of those landships, continued its lumbering journey through the plains. Sand spun out from under its six enormous tank treads as it moved slowly, five stories tall without the treads and 30,000 tons in weight, a dusty, exhaust-stained city on the move. Each of its engines alone, if hollowed out, could fit 100 people comfortably inside. Faces peered out from barracks windows and from the hundreds of gunner’s perches built all around the outside, and as it moved, it opened a heavy cargo bay door and let down a ramp at the back. The end of the ramp skimmed just over the ground, crushed flat by the treads, and twenty motorcyclists zoomed in single file out of the belly of the Finalizer and hit the sand one by one, peeling away from the opening in two lines. 

The party of motorcyclists outpaced the Finalizer and left it swimming back into the heat haze within minutes. They rode in formation, following the leader like a flock of birds, and drove without stopping for two hours, in the direction of the distant blue mountain range to the west. 

Finally, they spotted an enormous spire of rock, sticking up from the flat desert plain like an animal’s horn, and the lead motorcyclist curved her path toward the spire. The others followed her, the formation arcing easily across the sand. 

The motorcycles pulled to a stop. Most of them were worn, dented and scratched and with parts replaced, decorated with splashes of paint and scraps of fabric. The exception was one of the motorcycles in the middle of the formation, which gleamed chrome as if it had been obsessively polished. Its only colors were silver and black, and its rider matched it, dressed in black clothes and a heavy, knee-length coat that had obviously been cobbled together and then patched with every bit of black fabric its owner could get his hands on. Parts of the coat were stiff where a particularly faded section had been touched up with black paint. 

The owner of the black coat and the gleaming motorcycle dismounted and pulled off his helmet, revealing a pallid face with dark circles under the eyes and a head of red hair. “Alright,” Hux said wearily, “let’s go.”

Phasma, from her place at the head of the formation, nodded, hanging her own helmet on her handlebars and gesturing left and right. “Alpha group, with us, beta group, spread out and secure the perimeter.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the other motorcyclists chorused. 

“The Republic took out the staircase,” Phasma said, falling into step next to Hux. Eight of the motorcyclists followed them to the base of the spire, dragging a large bundle with them; the other ten started taking up positions at various places on the flat sand. “We’ll have to set up ladders and scale it that way.”

Hux frowned and rolled his eyes. “I guess we should just count ourselves lucky they didn’t bring the whole damn rock down when we drove them out of this area.”

“Well, we did manage to catch them by surprise, sir,” Phasma answered, then raised her voice. “Set up the ladder.”

“How is this going to work?” Hux asked as the Storm Troopers unpacked the bundle, bringing out lengths of metal piping with cord strung between them.

“Four of them are going to deploy grappling hooks and climb to the top, then secure the ladder and send it back down to us. We’ll go up ourselves, and the last four will stay down here and secure the bottom of the ladder.” Phasma lowered her voice. “I’ll have you go up in front of me, sir. So I can catch you if I need to.”

Hux scowled at her. “I’m not completely incapable,” he hissed.

Phasma smirked slightly, a quick there-and-gone expression that only Hux saw. “I don’t know. You spend a lot of time walled up on the Finalizer.”

“Well,” Hux said venomously, “I’m so glad I have you to look after me, then.”

Phasma nodded. “Of course you do, sir.”

The Storm Troopers were strong and well-trained, and in very little time the ladder clattered down all the way from the distant top of the spire. 

“After you, sir,” Phasma said, gesturing to the ladder. Hux didn’t let himself hesitate as he grabbed the nearest rung and set off up the spire; he would never hear the end of it if he let Phasma see him falter now.

Although his arms were very tired by about halfway. He risked a glance down, just to see how Phasma was doing with the climb. Infuriatingly, she looked completely unfazed. Her face wasn’t even red with the exertion. 

“Bloody hell,” Hux muttered to himself as he turned back to the climb. Behind him, Phasma snorted a laugh. 

Finally they reached the narrow top of the spire. Phasma gestured to the four Storm Troopers to descend and stand guard with their companions. Hux wasted no time: from one of the capacious inner pockets of his coat, he pulled a collapsible telescope and a folded stand. He got down on his knees and set up the telescope on its stand, facing the mountain range to the west. Then, from another pocket, he pulled a small notebook and pen. 

Phasma sat down, propping her back against a rock, and alternated between watching Hux and scanning the horizon. The minutes stretched on with Hux only looking away from the telescope to move it slightly or to scribble in his notebook. 

After a very long while, Hux sat back on his heels and stretched his arms over his head, wincing at the myriad popping sounds his back made.

Quick as a cat, Phasma shoved herself to her feet and moved to kneel beside him. “What’s the situation, sir?” she asked in a low voice.

“Well,” Hux said, pushing the notebook toward her. She glanced at it, long years of acquaintance having given her a familiarity with his idiosyncratic, shorthand way of drawing maps. “The Republic forces are as dug in as we feared. They’ve got the high ground on rocky terrain, which is already in their favor, but it looks as thought they’ve set up plenty of gun nests and pillboxes and trenches.” He pointed out the various enemy formations and defenses.

“The Queen General is no fool,” Phasma said.

“No,” Hux said, with grudging respect. “It’s going to be a hell of a fight to drive them out of the mountains, but we knew that already. I’ve… we’ve been preparing for this for years.”

Phasma rolled his eyes at him, which Hux studiously did not react to. “Yes. _We_ have.”

When the First Order had come down from their refuge in the barren eastern hills, where they had regrouped after early, devastating defeats delivered by the Republic, Hux had vowed that he wouldn’t let anything stop him from marching all the way across the desert plains to the mountains and taking the Republic’s stronghold in a military base that had been abandoned during the cataclysm that broke the world. 

It had only taken two years for Hux to clear the plains of Republic forces. Now the last thing to do was storm the mountains. Successfully, of course. But Hux had no doubt in his mind that he was the only person for the job. 

If only the Supreme Leader, still in the hills in his own rolling fortress, the Supremacy, agreed. 

“So when does he get here?” Phasma asked, guessing the cause of Hux’s current bad mood.

“Three days,” Hux said shortly. “To _observe and lend any assistance necessary_.” Hux rolled his eyes. “To take over and claim the glory as soon as it looks certain we’ll win, I wouldn’t doubt. How can a military leader call someone his ‘apprentice’ when the blasted man has never even led troops in battle?”

“Well,” Phasma said, reasonably, “it isn’t as a military leader that Ren’s apprenticing, is it?”

“Don’t remind me,” Hux grumbled. “I’m not completely convinced the Force even exists.”

Phasma shrugged. “Snoke has done some astounding things, though. Things that are difficult to explain.”

Hux glanced around and, although they were alone atop the spire, lowered his voice still further. “There’s a lot that can be done with trickery and superstition.”

Phasma smirked. “As you say, sir.”

***

The ride back to the Finalizer was uneventful and free of any kind of ambush by Republic forces. Phasma was just settling in to the idea that they’d get back without anything going wrong, but then they came back in range of the Finalizer’s radio broadcasts. Instantly, the command frequency sprang to life in hers and Hux’s helmet earpieces; the Finalizer had obviously been broadcasting for some time, waiting until they came close enough to receive.

“General Hux, Captain Phasma, this is the Finalizer. Please respond,” the communications officer on duty said, with the air of someone who had been saying the same thing over and over with increasing urgency.

“This is General Hux,” Hux responded. “Report.”

“We’ve received a communication from Lord Ren’s party. They are arriving ahead of schedule and have requested that we contact you and ask you to be present when they reach the Finalizer.”

“What?” Hux snapped. “When did this communication come in?”

“Two hours ago, sir.”

“And how long until they arrive?”

“Um… Twenty minutes or so, now, sir.”

The command frequency exploded with Hux’s very creative cursing. “Thank you, Communications,” Phasma said over the noise, and the communications officer gratefully cut the broadcast. Grimly, Phasma revved the engine of her motorcycle and pushed it to its top speed, hearing the formation behind her follow her lead.

Lord Ren’s visit was going to be a disaster. Phasma could just tell.

***

Ren could feel the Finalizer through the Force long before he saw it: the massive working of the engines; the turning and churning of the treads; the flits and fidgets of running electricity; the billowing of smoke and smog; and marching and crawling through all its gaps, the machine-like bodies, the impulses of brains and the pumping of pulses and the expansion and contraction of muscles. The Finalizer was an oasis of mechanism in the dead naturalism of the desert.

Ren reveled in it. He was used to the environment of the Supremacy, of a place suffused with the Force as tamed and wielded by his master. Even in the enormous vehicle Supreme Leader Snoke had equipped him with, even surrounded by a detachment of Snoke’s Pretorian Guards, even meditating daily and practicing his manipulation of the Force, he had become more uneasy the farther he’d gotten from the Supremacy, especially when they’d come down out of the hills and entered the desert plains.

He hated feeling uneasy. He hated feeling weakness or any hint of fear. He should be well beyond those things, now.

But it would be over soon. He’d pushed the truck to its limits to arrive early, both because he hated being cut off from the machinery he’d gotten so used to and because he wanted to throw General Hux off balance, to assert himself right from the beginning.

As they pulled toward the Finalizer, Ren listened to his comms officer hailing and coordinating with the enormous rolling barracks’ command room. In front of them, at the back of the machine, a huge ramp began to lower, and the Finalizer reduced its speed to allow the truck to board.

With a sudden roar, twenty motorcycles peeled around from in front of the Finalizer, where they had been out of Ren’s line of sight. Irritated, Ren realized that the mechanical ripples they left on the Force had been masked by the chugging presence of the Finalizer, and he hadn’t even registered them. 

“Speed up,” Ren growled. 

The truck’s driver glanced nervously back at him, where he was standing just behind the seat. Ren carefully didn’t grasp the steadying straps, using the Force to keep him upright and still despite the swaying of the cab. He didn’t want to show any break in his infallibility, not even to members of Snoke’s own guards.

“Sir,” the driver said, “we should slow down. We’re risking a collision with the motorcycles…”

“Speed up,” Ren said, his voice darkening. “Do not make me repeat myself again.”

The driver nodded and Ren felt through the Force as the engine spun itself into faster motion, feeling the ignition of gasoline as clearly as if it was flowing through his own veins.

Even so, and to Ren’s annoyance, a few of the motorcycles managed to slip up the ramp and into the Finalizer’s vehicle bay before Ren’s convoy did. The rest peeled away, swinging wide to avoid the collision and to follow the visitors in.

Before the truck had even come to a stop, Ren had kicked open the door and jumped down, landing easily and turning his momentum into a looming stride across the bay. 

He could tell exactly where the Finalizer’s general was. The others’ minds bent around him, their consciousness of his authority leading them to make room for him instinctively. The man kicked the stand down on his motorcycle and swung his leg over to stand beside it, pulling off his helmet. He was only a few inches shorter than Ren, which was unusual, and under his helmet was pale skin and bright red hair. 

He glared at Ren, seemingly unimpressed by his looming presence or the black mask covering his entire face, not even bothering to cloak himself in deference. That, too, was unusual, and Ren couldn’t help feeling a shiver of interest.

***

The first thing Hux noticed about Ren was the fact that he was wearing a long black cloak that brushed the floor, so dark that it looked like it had never seen the sun and made of a single piece of unbroken black cloth. The black shirt and pants under it were just as dark and just as unpatched, and his boots and black metal mask were polished and shiny.

It was completely, utterly, almost painfully infuriating.

Hux set his shoulders and refused to think about his own tattered, inked coat. He’d been so proud of it. 

“Lord Ren,” he said, all icy formality. 

“General Hux,” Ren responded, his voice echoing mechanically from behind the vocoder in his mask. “You cut it a bit fine. I would have thought a representative of the Supreme Leader would have warranted more of a welcome.”

Hux seethed, but he didn’t bother pointing out that Ren was early. That was assuredly the man’s intention. Hux would be damned if he let Ren put him on the back foot on the Finalizer. The Finalizer was Hux’s and his alone.

“The necessities of war take precedence over ceremony, Lord Ren,” Hux said, clearly and expressionlessly. “As I’m sure you’ll discover if you spend more time at the front than in the rear. I’m afraid I’m a better military leader than a social organizer.” 

Ren didn’t answer for a long moment, and Hux entertained himself with the thought that, under the impenetrable mask, Ren’s face was twisting with annoyance. Finally, the other man said, “Well, I’m glad to hear it. Since that’s what I’ve come to see.”

“See,” not “evaluate,” but the threat was there anyway. Hux silently cursed the Supreme Leader. What the hell right did he have to hang this apprentice over Hux’s head like a knife? Hux was the best man to command the frontline troops, and if Snoke didn’t realize that, he was a fool. 

Well, this Lord Ren could not possibly prosecute this war better than Hux could. He owed it to his troops, and to himself, to keep his head and keep his command. 

“Excellent,” Hux said. “Then we should get along well.” Hux thought Ren made a soft sound, of disbelief or amusement, but it was difficult to tell with the mask. Hux felt a flush of indignation at the lack of professionalism in front of the lower-ranking soldiers. “I can have someone show you to your quarters. I’m sure you’re tired after your journey. Of course, if you’d prefer to start your observations immediately, I’m heading to the command deck with some new intelligence. You’re welcome to accompany me.”

There. Ren couldn’t refuse that, not in front of Hux’s soldiers and his own. Let Snoke’s pampered apprentice get a taste of what things were really like at the front, of the sleepless hours required by a real commander. He’d soon learn that he wasn’t deep behind the lines anymore. 

***

Ren hadn’t wanted to come out here. He had seen some of the reports Hux sent to Snoke, when he was within radio range, painstakingly translated code word by code word by Snoke’s team of communications officers, and Ren had no interest in all the minutia that Hux seemed so obsessed with. Troop numbers, supply lines, ground and weather conditions… None of these were things that Ren wanted to deal with. 

What Ren really wanted was to be unleashed, turned loose on the Republic strongholds in the mountains. He knew that the way to victory was with powerful, sudden strikes, overwhelming the Republic with strength in the Force, not the creeping numbers war that Hux seemed to be immersed in. Ren could end the war. He was pretty certain that ending the war was what he was _for_ in the first place, the reason Snoke had taken him in and trained him. 

But Snoke said he wasn’t ready yet, that his training wasn’t complete. And Snoke also said that the way to victory was to use both the Force and the regular army, together. So here Ren was, standing on the command deck of the Finalizer, bored out of his skull and determined not to show it, growing more and more convinced that Hux was completely useless.

It was nothing but maps and spreadsheets and statistics, this business of running the command deck. Hux had apparently been out on some kind of scouting mission, and he was hovering over the shoulder of the intelligence and terrain survey officers, engaged in a technical discussion about the locations of fortifications. As if there was any way to win a fight other than momentum and force.

Hux finally stepped away from his subordinates and took up what was apparently his habitual place dead-center of the command deck, on a slightly raised platform where he could look out the enormous front window of the hulking Finalizer and also look down at the stations of all of his officers. Ren rolled his eyes behind his mask and pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against, making sure his boots thunked against the floor and everyone was aware of his presence as he moved to stand beside the General.

“You think you can scheme your way into victory?” Ren asked in a low voice, leaning slightly toward Hux.

The taut line of Hux’s spine and shoulders tightened still further. Ren wouldn’t have said that was possible. Hux glanced at Ren out of the corner of his eyes, his mouth a thin line, and said, “No. I intend to fight my way into victory, and I intend to be well prepared for it. I owe my troops that much.”

“Do you doubt your soldiers? Their ferocity and willpower?”

That shot landed. Hux actually bared his teeth, before mastering himself and turning his eyes back to the front. “I don’t doubt a single one of them. And they don’t doubt me. Because they know that my orders are the best orders possible. That is why I _scheme_ , so I can make sure of it.”

_Well, at least he isn’t overly modest_ , Ren thought, amused. “Then when do we attack, General? Soon, I hope.”

“We attack when we are ready,” Hux said stiffly. “I trust you aren’t here to argue my methods with me. Not unless you want to let me know what victories you were winning while I and my troops were clearing the plains of Republic forces.”

Ren’s amusement was immediately replaced by a sharp thorn of anger. He couldn’t fathom how this scrawny, pale man with absolutely no ability to protect himself from Ren’s Force abilities could be so arrogant. And what was worse, beneath his cold exterior, Hux clearly had the potential for the fire and passion and anger that Ren valued. He could have been a man that Ren would respect, if he hadn’t held himself in check so severely.

Ren restrained himself from tossing Hux across the room and against the wall (although he did imagine it, in his mind’s eye). All it would have taken was a flick of Ren’s wrist. But he knew the Supreme Leader wouldn’t approve, so instead he said, low and venomous, “Better be careful. You may find that the mountains are a bit harder to crack. Especially when you have to come up against the Queen General.”

“I’ll take your advice under consideration, I’m sure, Lord Ren,” Hux said flatly.

***

Phasma had been right. Ren’s visit to the Finalizer was an absolute fucking disaster.

She had thought, or at least hoped, that she could maintain her distance from the obvious territorial conflict between the two commanders. She thought it might even be a bit funny, thought her loyalties would, of course, rest with General Hux. But it was quickly becoming much more difficult for her to maintain any kind of objectivity.

Frankly put, Ren was a walking hazard aboard her barracks. He demanded reports and updates from officers and soldiers going about their regular duties, and when he got news he didn’t like, or even just when he seemed to be in a bad mood, he would fly into rages that left him drawing his damned lightsaber, that crackling, spitting, blood-red thing that scared the hell out of her troopers. It wasn’t as though she had any idea of protecting her troops from all fear or danger, of course, but in their own barracks, they shouldn’t have to deal with an ostensible superior threatening them with what amounted to a laser in sword form.

What was worse, he expected Phasma to answer to him as much as she answered to Hux, which was, in her opinion, completely unacceptable. She and Hux had had a lot of time fighting together to work out a relationship that met with her approval, a relationship in which she could trust him to give her orders that made sense and, most importantly of all, to _get the hell out of her way_ when she was leading troops in the field. Ren, on the other hand, had imposed his presence on her and her troopers on three separate scouting and skirmish missions against the dregs of the Resistance, and his meddling was starting to be infuriating.

But the worst thing of all, although she avoided admitting to herself just how worried it made her, was the fact that he wouldn’t leave Hux alone and let him do his job. The two of them were like mountain lions trying to stake out a patch of rock for themselves, and it seemed as though neither of them could keep from poking and prodding and irritating the other, and between that and Ren’s tendency toward violence, she was worried that Hux would either lose his mind or have his head taken off by that lightsaber.

That would be bad for her and her troops; after all, she really did think he was a good commander. She’d rather serve under him than under anyone else. But, she supposed, if there was such a thing as being friends with your superior officers, if there was such a thing as having friends during wartime, she and Hux were friends. On a personal level, she was worried about him.

Although Phasma was one of the highest-ranking officers aboard the Finalizer, she was classified as strictly a field officer, and thus didn’t have to take command deck shifts, something for which she was eternally grateful. Hux seemed to be able to stand for hours on end, hands behind his back, staring out the window and occasionally receiving reports from his subordinates, without getting bored. He told her once that he did his best thinking on command deck shifts. He never used the captain’s chair, too wired and intent and focused to get off his feet.

Phasma, in contrast, felt her brain turn to mush and slowly seep out her ears the longer she had to be still. The command deck was no place for her; it was almost like an alien world. So whenever she felt the need to track down Hux, she slunk onto the command deck like she was sneaking into a place she didn’t belong.

Hux wasn’t on the command deck on that particular day, though. Phasma looked around and frowned. She sidled up behind Lieutenant Mitaka, sitting in the captain’s chair as the ranking officer on deck. 

“C-Captain,” he said, covering the stutter with a serious face and a salute as he stood up out of the chair and to attention. Phasma was secretly amused; for all Mitaka knew his way around the command deck infinitely better than she did, the man was completely intimidated by her.

“Lieutenant,” Phasma answered. “Where’s the General?”

“He swapped his first rest shift for an observation deck shift,” Mitaka said, and Phasma had to restrain herself from sighing.

“Understood,” she said, and turned to go.

“He ordered that he not be disturbed,” Mitaka piped up behind her.

“Of course,” Phasma said, and made her way from the command deck to the steep, narrow, rickety metal staircase leading to the observation deck.

The door to the observation deck was locked, as shown by the red light coming from the dusty bulb above the door. Phasma had a command override, though. It wasn’t common knowledge, but her code was the only one that could override Hux’s own. Just in case Hux ever worked himself to unconsciousness in his own quarters and needed to be rescued, as Phasma had explained to him, ignoring his scowling.

She entered her code and watched the bulb switch to green, the heavy _chunk_ of the door indicating that the lock had shoved back. She shouldered the door open and stepped onto the deck.

The observation deck was a space on the very top of the Finalizer, covered by a shallow semicircular dome of scuffed plexiglass and lined on all sides by long telescopes, sensors, and video recording equipment. Observation deck shifts were usually manned by teams of three, but Hux had apparently decided to take this one alone. He stood at the center of the room, his back to her.

Phasma made sure the heavy door was locked behind her again. Hux might actually snap if anyone else managed to get in.

“Avoiding anyone, sir?” she asked.

“Phasma,” Hux said, without turning around. “I believe I left orders not to disturb me.”

“Mmm, I believe you did,” Phasma said, standing next to him. 

“This is insubordination, Captain,” Hux said, a slight smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. He never smiled much more than slightly.

“Of course, sir,” Phasma said. “I’ll take myself to the brig immediately.”

“Can you take Ren with you?” Hux said, attempting amusement but voice shaking slightly with stress. “Just lock him somewhere and lose the key.”

“Happy to, General. I just need to find a laser-proof door.”

“If only,” Hux sighed. “Captain, this is a disaster.”

“It’s unfortunate, certainly,” Phasma responded. “Ren is a volatile meddler. That’s about the kindest description of him I can think of.” Hux snorted with laughter, and quickly mastered himself. “But it isn’t as though we thought this campaign would be without setbacks.”

“No, we just expected them to come from the other side,” Hux muttered dryly.

“You are the General,” Phasma said firmly, cutting him off from complaining any further. “The Finalizer is yours. Your strategy will see us through the coming battles. We are counting on you to lead us. That hasn’t changed. Your abilities haven’t changed. We will win despite Ren’s meddling, I have absolute faith in that.”

Hux was silent for such a long moment that Phasma started to wonder if she’d said something wrong. Then he let out a heavy breath and nodded decisively, carefully looking away from her so that she couldn’t see his face. She imagined he wasn’t in complete control of his expression.

“Thank you, Captain. I appreciate your insight and ability to provide perspective. It is… It would be far more difficult to accomplish my mission without you.”

“Likewise, General,” she said, looking away from him in her turn so that he wouldn’t see her smile broadly. “There is no officer I’d rather serve under.”

After a few more beats of silence, Phasma cleared her throat and asked, “Shall I serve out the rest of this shift with you, sir? Two sets of eyes see more than one.”

“Appreciated, Captain,” Hux answered. “Although there’s been precious little to see thus far. I noticed and logged some flashes a few hours ago, they might be light reflections off something mechanical or they might just as easily be optical illusions out here. I’ll leave it up to the video analysts to…”

The crackle and squawk of the intercom box over their heads cut him off. “All senior officers, your presence is requested on the command deck,” Mitaka’s voice said, sounding tense. “Repeat, all senior officers, your presence is requested on the command deck.”

“Oh, hell, what is it now,” Phasma muttered, but before she’d even finished the thought, Hux was rushing across the room to the door.

“Come on,” he said, a flurry of movement. “That message went out across the Finalizer, which means Ren heard it too, and I’ll be damned if I let him beat me to my own command deck.”

***

They beat Ren to the command deck by approximately twelve seconds, by Hux’s count, which gave Hux the delicious opportunity to stand in a central position in the command deck and completely ignore Ren as he walked in. 

Wonderful.

His mood improved slightly, Hux loomed over Mitaka and demanded the Lieutenant’s report.

“Sir,” Mitaka said, standing from his chair and saluting. “We intercepted a transmission on one of the Republic’s outdated frequencies. It’s encrypted in their L-913 code.”

Hux mentally ran through the lists the Finalizer crew had compiled of Republic codes, all neatly organized by the date of first interception. “That’s a newer one. All evidence indicates that they don’t know yet that we’ve cracked it.”

Mitaka nodded. “Precisely, sir.”

“Has it been decrypted yet?”

Mitaka nodded and gestured to the communications officer, who rose and saluted. The decrypted message was displayed on the comms screen, and Hux felt excitement rise with every word he read.

_Mission abort. Extraction requested. Coordinates to follow. Queen priority extraction._

“Queen,” Hux mouthed the word without saying it out loud. “Tell me we intercepted the follow-up message,” he barked at the communications officer, or Mitaka, or anyone in the room, really.

“Yes, sir,” the communications officer said. “We have the coordinates that were transmitted. They are within the plains, several miles beyond the foothills, approximately thirty miles to the north of our current position.”

“Excellent,” Hux said, trying to contain his high spirits. “Good work, Comms. Captain Phasma, how soon can a field team be prepped to depart?”

“Ten minutes, sir,” Phasma answered, and Hux felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

“Do it, Captain,” he said. “Lieutenant Mitaka, you have the command for the duration; turn the Finalizer to follow us and get extra personnel manning comms and decryption, just in case any additional messages come in. Captain Phasma, we’ll move out on my order; I will be accompanying you. ”

How could he do anything else? Ordinarily, he preferred to stay aboard the Finalizer, presiding over his domain, but this chance was too good to pass up. He had to oversee the operation personally. 

“Queen” was the Republic codename, adopted and frequently used by First Order soldiers and officers and even Hux himself, for the Republic’s General, who had proved mysterious, slippery, and infuriatingly difficult to defeat. If she was really present on whatever mission this was, in territory held, albeit loosely, by the First Order… He couldn’t allow her to escape. Losing her had the potential to cripple the Republic’s war effort. 

Hux whirled on his heel to leave the command deck and froze when Ren said, “I’m going too.”

Ren didn’t look any different than he normally did (although who could tell with that mask), but his voice, even through the vocoder, sounded ragged and tense.

Hux turned to stare at him, all his excitement turning to ash. “I hardly think that’s necessary. We shouldn’t take three high-ranking officers on a field mission. It’s a liability.”

Ren cocked his head. “Then leave Captain Phasma aboard the Finalizer. Or stay yourself. But I’m going.”

Hux seethed. He damned well wasn’t staying aboard the Finalizer when there was a chance of bagging the Republic’s General, and he wasn’t going anywhere without Phasma. “Fine,” he said icily. “We leave in ten minutes. If you aren’t ready then, you can catch up.”

Hux regretted his words almost as soon as he had swept out of the door of the command deck. It wasn’t seemly to disagree so obviously in front of subordinate officers. _Damn it_ , he thought. He really hated Lord Ren.

***

Hux had no idea how close he had just come to death, Ren reflected as he stood in the Finalizer’s hangar, watching a team of mechanics get his motorcycle down from where it was strapped to the truck he’d arrived in. It had been a struggle for Ren to control himself and not draw his lightsaber or send someone flying with the Force.

The moment he’d seen the word “Queen” on the screen of the comms station, he’d felt it grow infinitely harder to keep his emotions in check. This mission was going to be difficult. 

_Then don’t go_. Part of him thought this was a terrible idea, and that part was probably right. 

But the thought of Hux capturing… the _Republic’s General_ (he made sure to use her title in his mind, to create some distance) while he just stood by and did nothing made him feel as though he would lose his mind. He had to be there. He wasn’t sure what he would need to do, but he had to be there.

Captain Phasma and her field team of Storm Troopers entered the hangar, and he observed them through the Force without turning in their direction. Their minds were like connections in a circuit, relationships and emotions and desires and currents flowing between them in different directions, bending with their respect for and fear of their Captain like iron filings being alternately attracted and repelled by a magnet. Ren couldn’t help but respect Phasma. It was obvious from even the most superficial glance at the Storm Troopers’ minds that she was a commander who could not be ignored.

Hux strode into the hangar, and just like that, the mental currents changed, the circuit closed. Everyone on the field team, from Phasma to the most junior Storm Trooper, turned their attention to him. For all that Ren thought he wasn’t worthy of their respect, he couldn’t deny that he _commanded_ them in a way that went beyond verbal orders. He was to the Finalizer’s crew what the engines were for the machine’s enormous hull. 

That didn’t make Ren like the insufferable man any more, though. 

“Lord Ren,” Hux said, grasping the handlebars of his own bike. “I trust you’re ready to move out?” 

_Of course_ , Ren thought, _the spotless, completely clean motorcycle is his_. Ren’s amusement was full of contempt and completely ignored the fact that Ren’s bike was equally spotless.

“Lead on, _General_ ,” Ren said, keeping his tone mild and enjoying the way Hux visibly seethed.

As soon as their wheels hit the sand, the field team assembled neatly into a formation, with Phasma at their head and Hux in the center, and Ren was content to follow them, watching their movements. They were well-trained, there was no doubting that. Ren wasn’t sure whether he thought that was a good thing; individual will mattered so much more than collective training in an actual battle, after all. 

Besides, it was probably all Phasma’s doing. Hux probably had nothing to do with it. He just sat in his command deck and made lists and stared at spreadsheets of numbers.

Ren didn’t hate Hux, of course. Hux was much too far beneath Ren, in every way that mattered, for him to be worth hating. 

As he drove, he found himself staring at that central figure on the polished silver bike, glaring daggers into Hux’s back. Every time he caught himself doing it, he made himself watch the landscape around them, trying to pick up on any potential threats. But his eyes kept being drawn back, every time he let his attention slip.

***

Hux had to calm the hell down. He had to watch the horizon, monitor his troops, be sure he understood the situation. He couldn’t keep thinking about the fact that Ren was behind him, watching everything he did. Bloody fucking hell, he truly hated the man. 

The worst part of all, of course, was that Ren was genuinely intimidating, with an overbearing presence that Hux, when he allowed himself to, could admit he wished he could emulate. If Ren could just control his temper, could just prove that he was a damned adult who was worthy of respect, he could be an inspiring leader. 

But, unfortunately, Ren was an arrogant idiot who couldn’t admit his own faults and who was currently inflicting those faults onto Hux and his men. And was probably also currently staring at Hux’s back. It was infuriating. And distracting.

Only because it was infuriating, of course.

“Sir,” Phasma’s voice sounded in his earpiece, dragging him out of his increasingly circular thoughts. “We’re ten miles out from the coordinates in the Republic broadcast.”

“Understood, thank you, Captain.” Hux glanced down at the compass between his handlebars, imagining a map in his head. “Thirty degrees west, please.” Hux had studied the terrain maps that were available to him before they left, and had selected a place for them to leave the bikes and an approach that should keep them hidden. He didn’t want to lose the element of surprise.

The coordinates were almost dead center in a field of rocky valleys, arroyos, and ridges, which concerned Hux. They would be able to hide, but so would the Republic forces. If they didn’t keep themselves hidden, their surprise attack could become the Republic’s. 

They left the bikes, with a two-man guard, in the lee of a ridge. Phasma scanned the landscape, easily taking in its strategic potential, so that it took only a few words and gestures for her to understand the approach that Hux had planned. 

She truly was indispensable. His satisfaction at their efficiency was almost enough to make him forget about the looming presence of Ren. 

***

Phasma led the field team, behind only the forward scouts. Unfortunately, Hux had positioned himself right behind her. 

This usually wouldn’t bother her, but this was a dangerous and unpredictable mission, and Phasma had the sneaking suspicion that he was putting himself so close to the front, rather than in the center where he should be and where he would be better protected, either to get away from Ren, who was bringing up the rear, or to show up the other man. 

Neither of those were sensible, logical reasons for Hux to do things. Ren’s presence was starting to make her commanding officer make inferior decisions. 

Ren might think that the war would be won with individual valor, and Hux might think it would be won with well-made weaponry and well-laid plans, but Phasma thought differently. The war would be won by the weight of its soldiers, as long as they were trained and deployed properly. But to do that, they needed to balance winning victories with keeping their soldiers alive, and to do that, Hux needed to keep his head. 

Damn Ren. It was useless to wish they could go back to the way things were just a few months before, when they had been riding the momentum of victory and the expulsion of the Republic from the plains. She wished it anyway.

“Sir,” she said pointedly, drawing Hux’s attention. “I don’t see any sign of the Republic operatives.”

Hux finally tore his glare away from the back of Ren’s head and looked around. “According to the terrain surveys, this area is honeycombed by a cave system. They must have retreated underground somewhere. Please order the deployment of the low-intensity scanner.”

Phasma nodded and gestured to one of her troopers, who pulled the scanner from the pack on his back and fired it up. It would scan for any human-made electronic activity, but with its lowered intensity would hopefully go unnoticed by enemy systems. That meant it was only useful at close ranges, but the Republic troops shouldn’t be too far off at this point.

The scan made a series of sounds, and Phasma jerked her head toward the head of the column, indicating that the trooper holding it should take point.

They moved in formation, trying to keep behind or under cover as much as possible. It was easy enough to do, given the broken, rocky terrain, cut through with ridges and arroyos, but it also meant that there was no way to be sure they weren’t going to be ambushed. Phasma wished her eyes could look in every direction at once.

Finally, the trooper at the head of the column brought them to a halt at the narrow mouth of an overhang. Phasma peered into it; it stayed wide, open to the fresh air, for a hundred feet or so, then began to narrow until it terminated in the entrance to a passage winding down, deeper into the cave system, presumably. 

At first, there didn’t seem to be anything to see, but when Phasma looked closer, she saw a few scorch marks along the walls, the occasional disturbance of the dusty floor of the overhang in the shape of footprints, close to the walls where they might have been overlooked. Someone had been here, and attempted to cover their tracks.

Or attempted to make it look that way. Phasma narrowed her eyes with suspicion.

“What kind of signal is it?” Hux asked, his voice low.

“It’s some kind of transmission,” the trooper said, looking at the scanner screen in confusion. “It’s coming from inside the caves. It’s faint, because it’s coming through all that rock.”

“Then how far was it intended to go?” Hux asked. 

The trooper shook his head. “Not far. It’s likely only decipherable or receivable inside the cave system.”

Phasma felt her suspicions spike. She moved closer to Hux and opened her mouth to say something, but Ren beat her to it.

“They’re still inside,” Ren growled, and then took off into the overhang, toward the entrance to the passage, drawing his lightsaber as he went.

Phasma cursed under her breath, and then cursed again when Hux took off after him.

“Wait, Ren! Damn it, what the hell are you…”

“Sir, we have to…” Phasma was striding after Hux almost before she thought about it, turning to gesture over her shoulder to her troopers, ordering them to stay put.

Ren had reached the mouth of the passage, the red of his lightsaber standing out against the darkness beyond it, when he froze. Phasma did the same, her hand hovering over her gun. There was a click and a beep, and then she heard a crackle in the rock over her head. 

_It’s all going to come down_ , she had time to think, before the explosion nearly knocked her off her feet.

Rocks were falling, with the potential to be deadly even through her helmet, and the overhang above her groaned like an injured creature.

She darted forward, trying to get to General Hux, but immediately knew she wasn’t going to make it. She was too far from him, and much too far from the mouth of the passage. She was going to be crushed.

Through the dust and rock in the air, she caught sight of Ren, facing her, his hand raised, palm out. 

Then, something struck her. Not a rock, not even the shockwave of an explosion, although that was more like it. 

Something caught her like a giant hand, picked her up off her feet, and rocketed her backwards, away from the falling overhang, away from danger. She hit the ground and felt the wind go out of her, but when she looked up, even through the haze that was surrounding her, she could see that she had been thrown clear of the rockfall.

She wasn’t going to die, after all. But the overhang had been replaced by a wall of tumbled stone. And Hux and Ren were on the other side of it.

***

_Oh, fuck, this was such a terrible idea_ , was the first thought Hux had when the crash and rumble of the rockfall had faded enough for him to think. He had been struck by rocks in several places, including the side of his head, and he felt like a storm. The agony seemed to be ill-contained, as if at any second it would burst out of his body, presumably leaving a disgusting and bloody scene behind it.

Hux managed to shakily put a hand to his forehead, which didn’t help, and groan, which actually seemed to make the pain worse. He cracked his eyelids open, which felt exactly as awful as he expected it to, but he didn’t see anything but darkness. He could feel himself crumpled in a heap against the hard, irregular wall of the cavern. 

“You’re awake,” said a familiar voice that made not just the pain but the entire situation worse.

“Hell,” Hux said, his own voice vibrating uncomfortably through his face and between his ears. “You. Go there.” Hux fumbled at his belt until he found his little lamp and switched it on.

“You first,” answered Ren, who actually had the gall to sound amused. “You probably haven’t seen yourself in a mirror recently, but you’re the one who looks like he’s on death’s door.”

The cave entrance was nothing but a mass of jagged, broken stone. 

“Are we trapped in a fucking cave?” Hux muttered, slowly moving a hand behind him to try to lever himself into a standing position. The entire process was awful, and he was painfully aware of Ren, who was probably watching him and finding this all hilarious. 

“Your situational awareness is so impressive,” Ren said. 

Hux remembered the few seconds before everything had turned to chaos. “Damn,” he muttered, finally managing to stand up and immediately putting his aching head in his hands. 

He remembered that Ren had yanked him deeper into the cave, out of the way of the rockfall. And he also remembered…

“You pushed Phasma backward,” he said, his eyes widening behind his fingers. “She just flew backward, there didn’t seem to be any reason for it, but that was you, wasn’t it?”

“You may have heard,” Ren said, his voice infinitely sarcastic, “that I can use the Force.”

Hux decided not to tell Ren that he hadn’t entirely believed that the Force was real. There was no need to antagonize the other man in a situation like this. 

Instead, he asked, “Why?”

“Why did I push Captain Phasma back?” Ren asked, surprised. “She would have been killed by the rockfall. She’s a competent officer and a credit to the First Order, there was no reason not to make sure she lived through this whole fiasco.”

Hux didn’t have anything to say to that. It was precisely what he would have done. Well, perhaps he would have left Ren to die rather than saving him, but he certainly would have made sure Phasma was safe.

“She ran after us without even thinking,” Ren said quietly, maybe grudgingly. “You have loyal subordinates.”

That… sounded almost like a compliment. Loyal subordinates meant leaders who inspired loyalty.

Hux looked up sharply, wondering if he was being mocked. The sudden movement made his head ache so badly that his eyes watered.

When his vision cleared, he took his first good look at Ren since he had switched on the light. The shock rendered him completely speechless.

Ren was not wearing his helmet. Ren’s face was bare and uncovered. Ren was… not what he had been expecting.

He wasn’t sure what he had expected, to be honest. He hadn’t really bothered thinking about what the man looked like, too busy raging over Ren’s interference. But if he had had to guess, he would probably have been very wrong.

At first glance, Ren’s face was so ordinary that it was hard to imagine that he was the same person as Hux’s perpetual looming nuisance. But on a closer inspection, it became clear that there was an _oddness_ about the proportions of Ren’s face that drew the eye, that almost forced you to stare at him. His eyes could, perhaps, in a different life, have been described as warm, deep and dark, but there was an intensity and watchfulness to them that fascinated Hux just as much as it made him uneasy. He was watching Hux with such attention that it made him flush, and then get angry and confused at that fact. 

And, hell, Hux was staring at him, slack-jawed. He must look like an idiot. Ren tilted his head slightly to one side, and Hux tried to shake his own head before realizing, too late, that that was the worst idea he’d ever had.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Hux muttered, wincing. 

“Does your head hurt?” Ren asked.

“What do you think?” Hux hissed. 

“Do you want me to do something about it?”

Hux sucked in a breath. “Do what? Do you just carry around a medkit under your damn cape?”

“I wear a robe,” Ren said, and, damn it, he was definitely amused now. “It has sleeves. And I would use the Force.”

“The Force.” Hux was so _done_ with this man.

Ren raised both of his eyebrows, and when he spoke again his voice was lower, tenser, more dangerous. “You doubt my abilities?”

In another situation, Hux might have laughed at his wording, at the drama of it, but Hux just wanted to close his eyes and wake up back on the Finalizer, and he was pissed off. “You mean to tell me that this _Force_ allows you to just reach into a person’s head and fiddle around?”

“It allows me to do much more than that,” Ren said, and for a moment his eyes shone with excitement, as if he had been waiting and waiting for an opportunity to talk to someone about what he could do with the Force. 

“I’m sure.”

“Not going to take my word? You need me to prove it?”

“By taking away the pain in my head?”

“Not until you give me your permission, General,” Ren said, audibly sarcastic. “I’d hate to damage our important working relationship.”

Hux scowled, but his head was pounding, and Ren didn’t say anything else. Finally, Hux relented. 

“Fine. Show me what you can do.” Pride or no, he couldn’t even bring himself to hope Ren failed. His head really, really hurt.

And then it didn’t. It happened so suddenly that it made his head feel like it was floating away from his body, so light without the throbbing. The pain hadn’t even tapered off, just… vanished.

“Oh… Oh,” he said stupidly, putting a hand to his head and blinking at the almost overwhelming relief. “You… You did it.”

“No need to sound so surprised,” Ren said dryly. He looked at Hux expectantly. 

Hux grit his teeth and muttered, “I stand corrected.”

A quick flash of a smile darted across Ren’s face, then was gone. “No need to thank me, of course,” he said. 

Hux didn’t deign to answer that. He put his hands against the cave wall behind him and pushed away from it. Even without the pain in his head, his body was all over bruises, and he stumbled. Ren made a move toward him, almost as if he was going to help steady Hux, but Hux glared at him until he stopped moving, ignoring Ren’s smirk. Hux really didn’t want Ren’s broad hands on him in a moment of vulnerability. For… multiple reasons. 

Hux had never claimed to be superhuman. 

“It looks like there’s only one way we can go from here,” Ren said, pointing toward a narrow passage leading deeper into the cave system. 

“Delightful,” Hux muttered. 

The passage was dark and claustrophobic, lit only by Hux’s lamp, and there wasn’t space between the craggy walls for them to walk side-by-side. Instead, Hux trailed behind Ren, looking at the other man’s back, his heart pounding at the closeness of the air and at the thought of the batteries in the lamp, the fact that they only had a few hours of light. To distract himself, he griped in Ren’s general direction, “Why, oh why, did you have to charge in first? Is that how Snoke teaches command procedures?”

Ren’s back stiffened at his words, and Hux was suddenly very interested. He’d touched a nerve. How far could he burrow into it without Ren murdering him?

“So I take it there was a reason for it?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. 

Ren made a sound almost like a growl. Hux really, really wished he didn’t know exactly what Ren’s face looked like, now, and could just pretend that sound was coming from a faceless irritant. 

Ren didn’t otherwise answer, so Hux waited a few more moments, let the anticipation build, and said, all reasonableness, “You shouldn’t be keeping things from me. I’m your co-commander, and we are in a survival situation. I think I have a right to have all the facts.”

Ren snorted. “Co-commander. Of course,” he said, dripping sarcasm, and Hux bristled. He didn’t take the bait, just stayed silent, let the tension of the unanswered question grow.

Finally, Ren said, in a strained murmur, “I wanted to see for myself. If the Queen General was here.”

“Why? Were you desperate to capture her yourself?” It was a motive that made sense to Hux, much as he didn’t want to admit it, but Ren said nothing. “Would you even know her on sight?” Hux asked after a while. “The only images we have of her are decades old, she’s secretive. You could have…”

“I’d know her,” Ren cut in firmly.

“How? The Force?” Hux was trying not to sound too dismissive about the Force; he was genuinely curious about Ren’s certainty.

“I’ve met her before,” Ren said, very quietly.

Hux stumbled over his own feet and knocked his shoulder painfully against the wall. Ren paused and glanced behind at him, one eyebrow raised. Hux scowled. “How? When? In a battle? Were you on a mission behind Republic lines?”

“We need to keep moving,” Ren said. “We could easily run out of oxygen.” He started walking again, and Hux stumbled after him. 

_Ridiculous_ , Hux thought to himself. _If we’re breathing now, there must be permanent airflow. We won’t run out of oxygen. Although… We did just cause a cave-in. It might have changed things. Maybe… No, he’s just trying to scare me. We won’t run out of oxygen. We won’t_ …

“We won’t,” Ren said, in an echo of Hux’s thoughts so unsettling that Hux jumped slightly. “We won’t run out of oxygen. Just so you know.”

Hux gave Ren’s back his most poisonous glare. He considered asking Ren if he’d read Hux’s mind, but he didn’t want to give away that he was worried. 

They walked in silence for so long that Hux had given up on getting his questions answered and gone back to trying to distract himself from the eery closeness of the walls. 

“I wasn’t born into the First Order,” Ren said, and Hux immediately perked up, his attention caught. 

“No?”

“No.” Ren sighed. “I was brought up in the Republic. I used to be an apprentice to the Republic’s great Master of the Force.”

“Does Snoke…?”

“Know?” Ren actually laughed aloud. “Of course he does. He is the one who called me away from the Republic and drew me to the First Order. He showed me that I wasn’t reaching my full potential there. And before you ask, no, I didn’t hold back any intelligence when I answered Snoke’s call.”

“Well, good,” Hux said, lamely. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Ren laughed again, and Hux rolled his eyes. 

After another long while, Ren asked, “You… You’ve been in the First Order all your life?”

“My father was one of the founding generation,” Hux said. 

“A source of pride, I expect,” Ren said. He was being sarcastic again, pushing at Hux, but Hux didn’t feel able to push back with his usual skill. He found himself snapping without any control before he could help himself.

“Yes, if you must know.” His overloud voice knocked itself jarringly around the passage, bouncing off the walls. “My father was an absolute fucking bastard, and I’ve never shed a tear for him, on the day he died or any day since.” That wasn’t strictly true, of course; he’d shed many tears as a child because of his father’s actions, but Ren didn’t need to know that. “But it _is_ something to be proud of that I’m descended from someone who had the vision to participate in the founding of the First Order. Unless you have any objections?”

He was breathing hard by the time he was done with his idiotic little rant, and he cursed himself internally. This was probably exactly what Ren was looking for, for Hux to lose his composure and prove himself to be an inadequate commander.

But Ren just said, “I see,” with no amusement in his voice.

They didn’t say much more after that, and Hux watched the walls around them with a mixture of discomfort, anger, and, strangely, a bit of sadness.

***

Phasma’s lungs spasmed with coughs and her eyes streamed as the smoke and dust cleared. 

“Sir!” she finally choked out. “General Hux, are you alright?”

There were voices all around her, alarmed and shouting, but none of them sounded like her superior officer. She ducked to the nearest solid wall, putting her back to it and blinking, trying to bring everything into focus. 

It had been a trap, because of fucking course it had been. The cleanup of the campsite, the faint electronic signals, the original broadcast itself, it had all been staged. The Republic must have realized that their codes had been cracked.

She thought she could catalog most of the voices; she knew her troopers well. She ducked her head and drew in as deep a breath as she could, then shouted, “Stormtroopers! Assemble on me! Assemble on me!”

The air was starting to clear as they formed up around her. She counted her troopers. They were all there. The only people who weren’t there were General Hux and Lord Ren. 

Phasma sighed. Perfect. 

A shrill beeping hit her ears. Phasma turned to look at the trooper with the scanner. He looked back at her, his eyes wide. “Electronic signatures, coming online. A lot of them.”

And then they all heard the whine and roar of engines, echoing from seemingly all directions. Phasma was willing to bet that they were the engines of Resistance vehicles. The trap wasn’t fully sprung yet.

“Stormtroopers,” Phasma barked. “Deploy for combat!” 

Phasma lifted her shoulders and rolled them to trigger the deployment of her armor, smiling despite the situation at the _click_ the trigger made. Followed by the _whirr_ as the pistons stretching between each joint came to life. Then the _clunk_ as the armor unfolded and her silhouette became twice as large. 

Pneumatic hisses as the outer layer of her armor lifted away from the space between it and the inner layer, allowing a lattice of struts to unfold, tiny motors that Hux carefully figured out how to miniaturize springing to life and pumping gasoline through the tubes throughout, heating the water reservoir to create steam to power other parts. The outer layer extended into broad shields on both arms, and the structure underlying the armor would amplify her motions, adding speed to her running, adding force to her blows. 

And on her shoulders were twin rotating guns. 

All around her, the Stormtroopers were deploying their own battle armor. Theirs were all marvels of First Order engineering, all capable of increasing the troopers power and protection in a fight far above what they would ordinarily be. But none were as finely crafted and as lethal as Phasma’s armor. 

Phasma’s armor had been designed by General Hux, with her input, and built out of raw materials he’d collected and hoarded himself for the purpose. It was special. 

She was determined not to let her General die here.

_I’ve done all I can_ , Phasma thought, moving out with her squad, choosing the nearest high ground and climbing it in enormous, loping, mechanical strides. It was up to her to fight off the Resistance. It was up to Hux and Ren not to murder each other until they could be found.

She wished she felt more confident in their abilities.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Phasma muttered to herself.


	2. Chapter 2

Ren felt vaguely disappointed that he’d managed to get Hux to crack and start yelling, but he wasn’t sure whether he was disappointed in Hux or in himself. So he didn’t say anything else, just walked, and seethed, and tried to focus his use of the Force.

He was trying to feel out the caves, any way out, but there was so little for him to grab on to. The only electronic or mechanical thing he could have reached for was the soft signal of the broadcaster that the Resistance had baited their trap with, but that had been crushed in the rockfall. And there were no human minds nearby besides Hux’s, which he should have realized before.

He had been focused on the signal, and hadn’t realized that he had not been able to sense any Resistance members’ minds in the caves. He had let his feelings about the possibility of seeing his… of seeing Leia keep him from properly evaluating the situation. 

That was irritating enough on its own. He didn’t need to think about, he didn’t ever need to think about, the fact that he wasn’t sure what those feelings were. 

She was an enemy. That was all she was. It was the case because it had to be. He would never be able to reach his true potential unless he left behind his old attachments, his old weaknesses. Snoke had made that very clear.

The one good thing about all this was that Hux seemed to be content to let Ren lead, and he didn’t have to worry about making every choice of direction a battle for supremacy.

“Do you even have any idea about where you’re going, or are you just choosing at random?” Hux said disdainfully, breaking the silence for the first time in twenty minutes.

Damn. So much for that.

“I’m using the Force.” Ren didn’t bother telling Hux that his use of the Force wasn’t proving too useful so far.

Hux made a discontented sound, which Ren ignored.

He heard Hux stumble behind him, and reached out just enough to feel the exhaustion in the General’s mind. Even with the way Ren had blocked his pain, Hux felt like a battery running down, losing its charge. Ren stopped, apparently too abruptly, as Hux ran straight into his back.

Hux caught himself, his hands on either side of Ren’s body. It was just a momentary thing, before Hux regained his balance and stepped away, but it was enough to startle Ren, to shake him more than he wanted to admit.

It had been a long time since someone had touched him, gently, with their hands. Not a blow or an accidental bump against him in the heat of battle, but the press of fingers and palms and no attempt to hurt him. 

The feeling, the warmth, seemed to linger even after Hux had put a respectable distance between them again.

“We should rest for a bit,” Ren said.

“Rest?” Hux frowned. Ren entertained the thought that Hux was unfamiliar with the word, or the concept. The ever-present dark circles around the man’s eyes would seem to indicate that. “We need to get out of here as soon as possible. We should keep moving.”

Ren shook his head. “We can’t exhaust ourselves. We have no idea what the Republic’s full plan was, so we can’t assume we won’t need to fight. Or run.”

Hux’s frown remained on his face, but he nodded reluctantly. “Fine.” He put his back to the wall of the passage and slid down to the ground, sitting cross-legged.

Ren did the same against the opposite wall, facing Hux and trying to evaluate how ready for battle the other man was without making it obvious that was what he was doing.

“Do field commanders receive combat training?” he asked.

Hux shrugged. “I’m wasted in hand-to-hand fighting, but I’m an excellent shot.” He gestured toward the gun at his belt. “I’m not too proud to admit that you’re likely to be our best hope if we end up in a scrap of some kind.”

Ren nodded, relieved that it hadn’t devolved into a pointless argument.

After a moment, Hux offered quietly, “I am also aware of whose benefit this rest is for.” He shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably and said, “You seem to be able to walk on for days, like some kind of machine. Is that some trick of the Force?”

“No,” Ren said, surprised at the question. “It’s just something I learned to do in my training.” He left it at that; no need to go into all the dreadful, torturous days spent standing stock-still for twelve hours or more, lashed with pain sent by his Master if he moved or let any part of his body relax. The days-long marches through the hills, not allowed to stop for any reason, drinking from his canteen on the move and neglecting food or sleep. 

There was a reason for all of it. His Master was making him stronger, helping him reach his potential.

“You know,” Hux said, almost conversationally, leaning his head back and closing his eyes, his pale skin and red hair standing out dramatically against the dark stone, “until today, I wasn’t entirely sure I believed that the Force even existed.”

“You didn’t believe in the Force?” Ren said, his voice made sharper than he intended by his shock. It was absurd that Hux wouldn’t believe. He had seen what Ren and Snoke were capable of.

“I believe…” Hux hesitated, looking at Ren with his brow furrowed. “I don’t fucking know,” he finally said, sounding like the words had been wrenched out of him, painfully. “I suppose I have to admit that you are capable of doing _something_.”

Ren almost wanted to laugh, but didn’t. “So if you thought the Force wasn’t real, you followed Snoke because of, what, your personal liking for the man?” Ren couldn’t help the sarcasm creeping into his voice, and he winced. His Master had given him everything that he had, and he shouldn’t let his own childish inability to be grateful affect him.

He really didn’t want his Master to ever find out that he’d spoken about him so disrespectfully. 

Hux rolled his eyes, but there was a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, which made Ren feel satisfied for some reason. “Don’t be ridiculous. Personal loyalty has nothing to do with it, and neither does any kind of philosophy about the Force. I believe… I believe in power. I believe that a great deal of power, wielded with strength and will, is the only thing that keeps the world from descending into chaos.”

“But that is what the Force is about!” Ren said, excitedly. He wasn’t sure why he should be excited to make Hux understand this, but he was. “The Force is about power, and the will to wield it.”

“Well, obviously,” Hux said acidly, “I imagine being able to shift mountains with your mind would make a difference in enforcing your ideas.”

“No, not… Well, yes, it does, but… Look.” Ren leaned forward toward Hux, who looked startled. “There is more than one way to practice the Force. It has two sides, Dark and Light.”

“How very… primeval,” Hux said, raising an eyebrow, but Ren could see that he had the other man’s attention. 

“I was trained in the Light Side of the Force, before I… when I was younger.”

“When you were part of the Republic?” Ren looked at Hux sharply, but he didn’t seem to be attempting to mock him or accuse him of disloyalty. He seemed fascinated. It made Ren feel… as though he was at the center of everything. 

“Yes,” Ren said, and took a moment to collect his thoughts. “I learned from a great master of the Light Side. The Light Side is generated by the processes and momentum of the natural world, growth and water cycling and geologic change. That’s where a Force-user has to draw their power from. Can you see the problem with that?”

“Those are all rather slow processes,” Hux said, cocking his head. “Gradual. And when they’re not slow, they’re unpredictable.”

“Exactly!” Ren said, his heart leaping. “That is _exactly_ the problem. To build your power, to achieve your full strength, takes too much time to be useful.”

“Where does the Dark Side’s power come from?” Hux asked. 

“From mechanism,” Ren said, waving his hand at their surroundings before remembering that they were trapped in a cave and not aboard the Finalizer or a similar vehicle. It had been too long since he’d been cut off, out in the wild. Ren’s face flushed, embarrassed. “The engines of the Finalizer, the electricity of its computers, even the routines of its inhabitants, they all contribute. Mechanism works a thousand times more quickly than natural processes and can be built and multiplied by people. It is the perfect source of power.”

“You draw on it? On mechanism?” Hux asked, leaning forward with his eyes narrowed. “I’ve noticed no problems with functioning aboard the Finalizer.”

Ren shook his head. “That’s not how it works. I can draw on the mechanical workings without diminishing them.”

Hux’s eyebrows rose, and he looked genuinely impressed. “Then it is the perfect source of power. If, of course,” he said, seeming to recollect himself, “it works the way you claim.”

Ren laughed, and was surprised to find that he was actually amused, not just trying to intimidate Hux. “Well, I’ll say this for you. You are certainly dedicated to your skepticism.”

“I’m dedicated to a great many things,” Hux said, voice thick with sarcasm. Before Ren could respond to that, he asked, sharply, “The rumor is that Snoke can read minds. Even control them. Is that true?”

“He’s not the only one,” Ren said, and Hux frowned thunderously. 

“Are you lying to me?”

“No. Would you like me to read your mind to prove it?”

Hux’s panic was visible for the split second before he was able to master himself. “Do that and I will find a way to make you suffer. I’m not lying to you, either.” Ren rolled his eyes, but didn’t venture into Hux’s mind. He figured he had made his point. “How does that work, then? If you draw your strength from the workings of machines?”

“What is the mind but the most unique machine?” Ren said, and nearly winced when he realized that he was repeating something that Snoke had once told him. Much as he acknowledged his Master’s obvious power, he wasn’t entirely comfortable parroting him. “A quick-working, self-repairing machine.”

Hux’s eyes shone. “Yes! That’s it, that’s precisely it! I…” He brought himself up short, frowned, and sighed. “Much as it pains me, I must admit that we agree on something.”

“Oh?” Ren raised an eyebrow, enjoying Hux’s frustrated discomfort. 

“Machines, they simply… work. They function, or they break. There is no in-between. And if they break, you fix them, and you know you’ve done that when they function again. People are at their worst when they don’t do the same, when they allow themselves to be imperfect. When they do anything but just _work_. And to see the mind as a machine… I’ve always thought that the mind becomes better the closer it gets to a machine. I suppose I… I appreciate your philosophy. The philosophy of the Dark Side of the Force.”

As he spoke, Hux’s voice became quieter, tenser, and Ren thought he could almost glimpse the conflict and emotion behind the words, could almost make sense of them. For the first time, he had the thought that the cold logic that had so irritated him might be fueled by as much passion as Ren used to fuel his rage.

Ren wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. He was tempted to simply reach into Hux’s mind and force the answers out. The idea that he might have to try to understand the other man made him both nervous and satisfied. 

So he simply said, sincerely, “I’m glad we found something to agree on.” 

***

When Phasma was actually in a battle, it was impossible for her to see it as a whole. It was just a series of moments, of challenges: live through one, then the next, then the next. 

Phasma and her Stormtroopers deployed across the top of the ridge. The Resistance vehicles came into view, small, maneuverable cars with motorcyclists zipping between them, but Phasma had her troopers hold off on firing until they were in range. The air filled with bullets from both sides, and then the battle was joined.

Phasma watched the Resistance formation as it took fire from multiple directions and began to splinter, individual vehicles picking individual targets. With a whine of machinery, Phasma took a flying leap out of cover and into the Republic formation’s field of vision, powering up the guns on the arms of her suit and stitching a line of bullets across several motorcycles.

The motorcycle at the point of the formation, an oddly shaped thing with a large orange-and-white lump situated just behind the seat, peeled away from the others and zoomed toward her. “There you are,” Phasma said under her breath. “It’s leader against leader now.”

She waited, even though it made her skin crawl, until the motorcycle was close, then leaped to the side as a bolt from its guns obliterated the ground on which she’d just been standing. As she did, she swept her guns across the motorcycles wheels.

“Bet you weren’t expecting that,” she whispered, as the motorcycle spun out and its rider leaped clear.

Phasma loped across the ground, covering the distance with such speed that the armor pulled against the range of her joints and muscles. She was going to be in a tremendous amount of pain the next day, but only if she managed to survive this encounter.

The Resistance commander deployed a bounce suit as he leaped clear of his bike, jarring harmlessly against the rocks until he came to a stop, then wriggling out of the suit and to his feet, gun in hand, without hesitation, his eyes scanning all around him and coming to rest on her.

He raised the gun and fired. She dove out of the way, rolled, and came back to her feet, letting her momentum throw her back into a run without losing too much speed.

The Resistance commander was a man who looked to be about her age, at least half a foot shorter than her, and his uniform, such as it was, was a pair of canvas pants, boots, and a heavy leather jacket. He had brown skin and unruly, curly dark hair, his face set in a mask of concentration and his eyes narrowed. She took him in quickly, wondering if they had a file on him back aboard the Finalizer that she could look up. If he didn’t kill her.

Then she aimed her guns in his direction.

And then something slammed into her shins. Thanks to her armor, she was able to catch herself without falling, but her shot went wide, and she had to duck behind the shields on her arms to block the Resistance commander’s own shots.

She looked around, desperately trying to see what had hit her.

The Resistance commander’s wrecked bike no longer had an orange-and-white lump behind the seat. Instead, there was a very strange orange-and-white machine rolling away from her.

It was a large metal ball with a smaller semi-sphere perched on top, studded with sensors that gave it the look of having a single large eye. An antenna sprang from the top of the semi-sphere, and the machine rolled over the rocks and sand with astonishing speed, even as the semi-spherical head stayed still, staring at her.

It was a droid. There had always been rumors swirling around the First Order that the Republic had droids that were more complex and advanced than the bulky, limited machines that the First Order deployed in the engine rooms of ground ships like the Finalizer. Here in front of her was the proof that those rumors were true.

And she had been so busy staring at it that the man she was supposed to be killing had found cover.

“Fuck,” Phasma said, and dove for cover of her own just as the man began firing over the top of the rocks. 

After a second or two, there came a pause, and Phasma immediately sprang into motion, folding her shield and zigzagging up a nearby slope of crumbling rock, trying to gain some height over her opponent. 

As she did so, though, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, a few streaks of white and orange; the droid gave a loud _pop_ sound, followed by a _whoosh_ , and suddenly she was struck in the ankles by a blast of highly pressurized air just as she was attempting to take a step.

It would take precious vulnerable seconds to regain her balance or aim her weapons, so instead she launched herself toward the man, sweeping her guns around to train them in his direction.

Another blast of air hit her in the side and jarred her, just as the man threw himself out of the way, so that when she hit him, it wasn’t body to body but rather her fist swinging into his shoulder. It was still enough for him to cry out in pain and drop his gun. 

She took the opportunity to twist and send a spray of bullets slicing toward the droid. Although it seemed to have only nonlethal weaponry installed, it was still causing her too much trouble.

When she rolled back to her feet and took in the situation, the droid had taken a glancing bullet that had left it with a sparking divot carved through the full sphere of its metal body. It’s head still moved back and forth, turning to look at the damage to itself and then back at her, but it didn’t seem to be able to roll itself. It was probably her imagination, but the machine’s single glass eye seemed baleful and accusatory when it fixed itself on her. 

The man shouted and sprang to his feet, snatching his gun off the ground in his off hand; the arm that she had hit hung at his side. He ran to the droid and stepped in front of it, as if to protect it.

Phasma was a bit quicker than him in aiming her guns. She fired, and heard the rotating barrels winding up. 

Then she heard only the empty clicking of two spent chambers. She’d been too profligate earlier, and had run out of the limited bullets attached to the bandolier that ran through her armor.

Phasma’s guns wound down. The Republic fighter lifted his weapon, and Phasma stared him down through the visor of her helmet, furious. She wasn’t going to make it out of this alive, either. _Damn you_ , she thought at the Republic’s man.

He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

He was out of bullets, too.

Phasma stared for a moment longer, shocked to be still alive, before she realized what the implications of that were. This was now a hand-to-hand fight. And she was wearing a suit of extremely powerful mechanical armor.

The Republic fighter, his eyes wide in his handsome, tanned face, slowly lowered himself into a crouch, as if that would make any difference. Phasma grinned and leaped toward him, covering several body lengths with one bound.

Abruptly, the damaged droid drew itself up and extended a spindly mechanical arm from its body. The arm then produced a sudden spark of flame.

Phasma saw the fire out of the corner of her eye and threw herself to the ground, expecting something like the blast of a flamethrower. 

Instead, there was nothing. The fire, apparently just a lighter went out. The man grabbed the droid and took off running. 

Phasma cursed and pushed herself upright. She’d had her chance, and she’d let her fear of an unknown weapon get the better of her. Damn it.

A sudden roar of engines, and an open-backed car skidded up the slope. Without breaking stride, the Resistance commander leaped into the back, carrying the droid with him. Phasma pushed the armor, and her muscles and bones inside it, almost to the breaking point, but just as she’d reached the car, it fishtailed and slammed into her, sending her tumbling across the rocky, sandy ground.

She stood and looked up at the car, already rocketing away. She could just make out the shape of the Republic fighter in the back, holding on. She thought she could see him raise a hand to his curly dark hair and give her a salute.

She scowled. This day just got worse and worse.

“All unit commanders, assemble and report,” she barked into the communications channel. The Republic had underestimated how many of them would escape their trap and remain able to fight back. They wouldn’t make the same mistake again. They’d be back, and if Phasma hadn’t found Hux and gotten them out of there by that point, the already bad situation would become catastrophic.

Phasma listened to the reports as they came in. Casualties were far lighter than they could have been, but the reports still made her grit her teeth. “Alright,” she barked when all the reports were in, “march deployment, and follow me.”

_Soon_ , she thought. _Soon we can all finally fucking go home._

***

Hux was avoiding thinking about his own powerlessness in the situation, and how completely lost he was in the warren of caves and passages, by focusing on Ren in front of him. That probably wasn’t a good thing.

He had started by contemplating what Ren had told him about the Force, by thinking of ways he could use Ren’s power to enhance their war effort, by expanding his understanding of the weaponry available to him to include the Force. 

But as he had gotten more and more tired, his thoughts had started circling around the man himself. His face. His hair, which was really very thick and dark and curled around his shoulders in an eye-catching way. The very small glimpses of muscle under his robes. The thought of what he might look like without…

Hux shook his head, irritated with himself. He and Ren were potentially seconds away from death at any time, and he couldn’t restrain his… baser instincts.

He wished Ren had just kept the damned helmet on. He probably could have gone on just thinking of him as more machine than man, instead of thinking about what would happen if he took even more off.

He flushed and ducked his head. He was trying so hard to distract himself from his unwelcome line of thinking that he nearly walked into Ren again when the man stopped.

“What is it now?” Hux asked, perhaps a bit more snappish than was warranted. “I don’t need to rest again.”

“Something’s wrong,” Ren said shortly, and Hux tensed.

“What is it?” He lowered his voice, putting his back to one wall of the passage and glancing behind them.

“I… I don’t know. There’s something…” Ren trailed off, his voice frustrated.

Ren’s eyes suddenly went very wide, his face contorting in a snarl of absolute rage. Despite himself, Hux shrunk away from him.

“What?” he asked, his voice gone high with alarm. “What the hell is happening?”

“We have to get out of here. We’re about to be attacked.”

“What?!”

Before Ren could say anything more, a rumble came through the rock at their backs, a grinding sound so deep it was felt more than heard.

“Ren?” Hux asked, his heart slamming against his ribs.

Ren didn’t answer. Ren didn’t do anything. He stood straight, staring at nothing, his gloved fists clenched tightly at his sides.

“Ren!” Hux said, louder and more desperate. “What was that?”

“Something’s coming,” Ren ground out.

“I gathered that!” Hux shouted. “What is it? What direction is it coming from? How do we get away from it?!”

Ren looked up at Hux, looking wild and a little out of his mind. “I can’t…”

“What do you mean, you can’t?” Hux pushed off the wall and grabbed Ren by the shoulders, ignoring the spike of fear, as if he had put his head within biting reach of a wild animal. If he couldn’t get Ren to snap out of it, he’d probably be dead anyway. “You’re the one who’s been telling me all about the Force! You have power, use it!”

For a moment, Hux thought he had finally pushed Ren too far. Ren’s eyes darted with some internal conflict, his teeth bared like he’d been backed into a corner. Hux wanted to back up, to put some distance between them, but he was frozen, his hands on Ren’s tense shoulders and his eyes locked on the other man’s face.

Finally, Ren seemed to come to some kind of decision. His shoulders slumped and his face crumpled slightly. He shut his eyes, thought, then, lurched into motion so quickly that Hux was startled. 

“Come on!” Ren snarled, grabbing Hux’s wrist and pulling him along behind him. “We have to move quickly.”

Hux struggled to keep his feet. “What is happening?!” he shouted, covering his panic over with anger at still not understanding the situation.

“There’s something alive here. An animal. Multiple animals. We need to find good ground to fight.”

Hux’s heart dropped. _I can’t die_ , he thought firmly, clinging to any kind of determination he could muster. _Phasma would laugh if she found my body half chewed up by some cave monster. It’s too undignified._

“Come on,” Ren said, grabbing Hux’s wrist and dragging him after him. “This way!”

Ren cut into a passageway so narrow that they had to squeeze through it sideways, and Hux winced as the walls scraped against his back and chest, painful even through his heavy coat. It was too narrow, too small, they’d never make it… It was all he could do to keep his breathing even enough to stay conscious.

Just when he thought he wouldn’t manage it, the passageway abruptly opened out into an enormous cavern, bigger than any they’d seen. Hux stumbled into it after Ren, then bent double with his hands on his knees, desperate to catch his breath.

“Look,” Ren said impatiently, pointing toward one wall, where there was a ridge of higher ground. “It’s the most defensible place I was able to sense. Let’s go, quick, we don’t have any time.” He was already stalking toward the spot he’d selected, and Hux hurried after him.

They had barely reached the high ground when the distant rumble started to grow and grow, coming toward them fast enough to make the ground under Hux’s feet tremble.

“Fuck!” Ren muttered vehemently.

“What?” Hux asked, drawing his gun and frustrated at his uncertainty about where to point it.

“They’ve picked up our scent, apparently.”

“What are they?” Hux shouted over the building sound of grinding and scraping and shaking rock. His question was answered almost immediately.

With a crunch of breaking stone, three of the passages leading into the chamber erupted at almost the same moment with twisting masses of pale flesh. A screeching sound that could have been the sound of the creatures’ carapaces scraping or a sound they were making with their lungs, Hux wasn’t sure, filled the air and made Hux’s stomach roil.

The creatures were enormous tunneling worms, their skin wrinkled and white, ringed with pink and black, coiling with muscle and studded with short, ever-moving legs. Their front ends were completely taken up by circular mouths that seemed to reveal impossibly more and more teeth the wider they grew. Each one was longer than Hux and Ren together were tall, and bigger around than the largest of the prototype suits of armor that Hux had been designing for Captain Phasma. They clearly had the ability to swallow their prey whole.

That nauseating thought was the last one that Hux had time for before the worms were upon them, and he had to start operating by instinct.

Ren was already in motion, igniting his lightsaber and springing straight into a front flip onto the top of the nearest worm’s head. The red saber twirled through the air in a disorienting wheel of light, and the worm made a bizarre sound, a deep roar overlaid with a high whining. There was a smell like charring meat.

Hux had no more time to wonder what Ren was doing, however. Another worm was almost upon him, rearing up and snapping its circular jaws at him. He was just out of its reach, but he scurried backward anyway, and winced when he saw that it was flailing its limbs, dragging itself up onto the bit of ground with him. He took a steadying breath, took aim with his gun, and stitched a line of bullets across its body and into its wide-open mouth.

The body shots didn’t even bleed. It must have thick hide. The shots to the mouth were another story, though, opening up rents in the creature’s throat that poured blood. The worm shook its head like it was dislodging an irritating fly and began to slip backward off the ridge.

The one behind it didn’t show a hint of concern over its companion’s plight. Instead, it climbed over the first worm’s body, coming toward Hux with appalling single-mindedness. Distantly, Hux realized that he could still hear the sound of the lightsaber, the screaming of one or the other of the remaining creatures, but he didn’t have the time to think about that with the third worm clambering up onto the ridge and coming straight toward him. His back was nearly against the wall of the cavern.

This worm had neglected to give him any kind of good target; it kept its round maw closed behind its interlocking teeth. The teeth that would turn Hux into paste against the rock behind him if he didn’t do something. 

But then the worm took a breath, a rasping inhale that didn’t seem to involve opening its mouth. Hux caught motion on the worm’s body, a series of pits opening up, the air being sucked in through them. 

No time to hesitate, no time to wonder or overthink it. Hux ducked to the side and dodged one of the worm’s flailing legs and fired three shots point-blank into one of the pits, just as it was starting to seal shut again. 

The effect was immediate: the worm spasmed across the entire length of its body, its legs coming out from under it and its mouth opening wide with a terrible roar that made Hux’s skin crawl. The breathing pit that he had shot was bleeding and hissing.

Hux tried to scramble out of the way, but one of the worm’s flailing legs caught him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and lifting him off his feet, sending him crashing back down to the hard ground a foot or so away. He lay dazed for a long second, struggling to catch his breath again.

As the worm reared back, screeching and scrabbling with its many legs at the hole the gun had left in its body, Ren leaped up, higher than Hux would have thought possible, turning in midair and slicing down through the bulk of the thing, just below the head. It listed to the side and crashed to the ground, twitching a few times before falling still.

And just like that, silence fell again. Ren stepped back from the body of the last tunnel worm and doused his lightsaber, the red light winking out and leaving them in the half-light cast by Hux’s headlamp. Ren looked around at each of the creatures in turn, then looked back up at Hux.

Hux’s heart was still pounding, but the adrenaline was starting to drain away, leaving his hand around the stock of his gun trembling. He holstered the gun and whirled around, scanning every wall, every entrance to the cavern, trying to make sure there was nothing else there, nothing else that wanted to kill him. 

His eyes fell on Ren, standing completely still, his lightsaber still ignited. _Well_ , Hux thought, _at least there’s only one thing here that wants to kill me_.

For some reason, that struck him as unbelievably funny. He snorted with amusement, and before he knew what was happening, he was doubled over with laughter that made his stomach and chest ache.

“Hux, did you go insane?” Ren asked, sounding more curious than accusatory. That just made Hux laugh even harder.

“We’re alive,” he choked out.

“I thought you were the one with all the battle experience,” Ren said, and then abruptly started laughing himself.

Hux tried to be indignant, he really did, but he couldn’t manage it. “Planning battles, overseeing battles. It’s not as though I…” he trailed off. He wasn’t sure how to describe… anything. He honestly couldn’t believe he’d been able to shoot as straight as he had. As straight as though he was at a range aboard the Finalizer.

“Good shooting,” Ren said, and sounded like he really meant it. That was the second time he’d voiced a thought that could have been pulled straight out of Hux’s head, but Hux didn’t challenge him on it. 

The red light of Ren’s lightsaber winked out and he hung it back on the belt at his side. “You were impressive,” Hux said, then felt his face heat up as his mind caught up with his words. “I mean… with your lightsaber. It was…”

Ren took a step toward him. Hux’s felt as though his adrenaline had suddenly and inexplicably spiked again. He suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about Ren’s shoulders under his hands, Ren’s fingers closed around his wrist, Ren sliding in behind him to guard his back…

Ren stepped in again, his eyes on Hux’s, his stare intense. _I wish he’d kept his helmet on_ , Hux thought, with very little conviction. _It would be so much less distracting_ …

“We’re alive,” Ren murmured, and then he pressed his lips against Hux’s.

_Oh, fuck_ , Hux thought, and that was about the last coherent thought he could come up with for a while.

***

Even after everything that Ren had told him, Hux had no idea what it meant to Ren. What he was being asked to do, what carefully cauterized weaknesses it would tear open in him. 

It had taken him too long to recognize the presence of chaotic animal minds, of nearly mindless hunger. It had been years since he’d tried to make himself aware of a non-human mind.

The memory had come to him with the strength of a blow: the isolated mountain retreat where L… where his old master had taught him and all the other students, the forest thick with fencing wildlife all around. The way he had sometimes reached into the minds of mice and songbirds and even deer, trying to organize them, to smooth them out and make them work properly, when he had first started to be drawn toward the Dark Side.

He had tried so hard to forget those mountains, the aloneness and fear and confusion, the clear skies and clear air and the sometimes-felt anticipation and hope and the way his uncle had sometimes made him feel lonelier than he ever had and had sometimes made him feel as if someone loved him and was proud of him and it was too much to think about he couldn’t…

It had taken a frightening effort to push away the flood of memories. But the situation he found himself in was just as dangerous.

With the Dark Side of the Force, he would have been able to map out every room, thrumming with electricity, aboard the Finalizer, and to touch the purposefully orderly minds of each of its inhabitants. But he wasn’t aboard the Finalizer now. He was in the wild, far from all the machines and engines he was used to.

To get out of this situation, he realized, he would have to map the layout of the caves, formed by the slow natural movement of the earth, and to figure out the actions of beasts, chaotically lurching from reaction to reaction.

He would need to use the Light Side of the Force.

Hux was shouting at him, demanding, finally stepping into his space and putting his hands on him. In his confused state of mind, the feeling of someone else touching him was almost overwhelming. It had been years since that had happened. It made the reality of having to reconnect with the Light Side all the more horrifying. It was as if he had stepped back in time. It made his chest ache and his head spin. He could feel himself baring his teeth.

Hux was demanding he do something. Damn it, Hux didn’t understand what he was asking. He didn’t understand that he was asking too much. It was too much.

Ren couldn’t do it.

Ren had to do it. If he didn’t, they’d both die.

Ren circled over and over through the possibilities. What would his Master want him to do? Would he want Ren to die, unstained by the Light Side of the Force? Would he be able to excise the Light Side from his mind a second time?

Had he even managed to get rid of it completely the first time? 

He had tried for so long to deny that he felt any kind of pull toward the Light. What would his Master want him to do?

What did Ren want to do?

The answer came to him so clearly that it was inarguable: he wanted to live. He didn’t want to die here. 

He took a deep breath, allowed himself a last moment of despair, then plunged himself back into the Light Side of the Force.

It rushed up around him as if it had never left, so swift that it took his breath away and almost made him choke on his own tongue. It was overwhelming, it was oppressive, and it was… so terribly, horribly familiar, like an immense _rightness_ that was pulling him in no matter how hard he tried to escape from it. This was why his Master was so adamant that he was weak, because he could so easily betray the Dark Side and all the power it had offered him. And for what? What could the Light Side possibly offer him that was worth more than that power?

Still, there was a treacherous part of his brain that whispered, _Was it really so bad, back then?_ As soon as he touched the Light Side, emotions rose up and roiled through him that he’d spent more than a decade trying to crush completely. He didn’t like realizing that he’d failed.

He growled and struggled to focus. With the Light Side at his disposal, his narrowed view suddenly opened out. He was no longer limited, in this wild place; he was abruptly able to see the structure of the cave system, and with it, the existence of the creatures that were being called down on them. They were big, he could tell, and more agile in the constrained spaces of the caves than even Ren would be. 

He was barely aware of his conversation with Hux, throwing his consciousness out to find a nearby space they could make a stand, that would allow him enough room to use his lightsaber to his advantage.

He yanked Hux after him, somehow, in his hurry, not even thinking about the possibility that the other man might be a liability in combat and should be abandoned. It really didn’t even occur to him; the longer he spent in contact with the Light Side, the more he seemed to thrill and ignite at that point of connection between them, the less he could think of leaving behind this warm, real, living person that was beside him, breathing and pumping blood and _living_. Oh hell, how could he have forgotten this?

Luckily, soon all he had to worry about was fighting, and he had been preparing to do that for years, even before Snoke had drawn him away from the mountains, from his old Master, from the Light Side. Fighting had its own rhythm, its own ebbing and flowing, and it gave him a breathing space, a way to push the Light Side away and even himself out, regain control of himself. Just him and an enemy, just one on one. Or, in this case, three on one.

But that wasn’t true, was it? It was three on two, he realized as he turned toward the last of the creatures. He had heard and ignored the sound of Hux’s blaster, but he saw as Hux suddenly darted forward, dodging around the mouth and limbs of the worm, his face stony with concentration, and fired a few well-placed shots. Through the echoes of the Light Side of the Force, Ren could feel the shock of the creature’s wounding; Hux had found a weak spot. 

Then one of the creature’s legs, flailing in its agony, connected, and Hux went flying. Ren was moving before he had really thought about it, vaulting up onto the worm’s back and taking advantage of the wounds Hux’s gunshots had left to slice his lightsaber into its softest parts, gouging until the creature tumbled to the side and stopped moving.

There. The battle was fought, and won. They were out of danger, for the moment. There was no reason to continue leaving himself open to the weakness that seeped out of the Light Side of the Force.

This was the moment, the moment for him to push the Light Side away and embrace the Dark Side again, to return to where he belonged.

Except… Except there was a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, and he made the mistake of turning toward it, and catching sight of Hux clambering, a bit shakily, to his feet.

Hux, who was so suffused with warmth and life, stick-thin and obviously bruised and in pain but still trying to hold himself perfectly straight, his skinny chest rising and falling under his shirt, his hair in complete disarray, each strand catching what little light there was in the cavern. Ren had been trying so hard to deny the fact that, despite Hux’s hollow cheeks and pallor and the dark circles under his eyes, Ren found him attractive. 

Now, there was no denying it. Each breath, each vibrant assertion of _aliveness_ , seemed to draw the Light Side of the Force tighter around Hux like a cloak. Desperately, Ren tried to recover their earlier conversation, the knowledge that Hux’s mind worked like a machine, that he, like all right-thinking members of the First Order, belonged to the Dark Side far more than he would ever belong to the Light.

It was no use. Without warning, the Light Side surged through Ren himself, responding, exalting in being alive and in movement and chaos and speed and slowness and in ancient momentum and short-lived sprints and in everything that he had tried to leave behind for his Master’s work. It was hopeless. Ren _wanted_ so badly. 

He fell into the kiss with the inevitability of falling off a cliff, and the worst part was that he couldn’t really bring himself to mind.

***

It had been a very, very, very long time since Hux had kissed someone, and that had been teenage fumblings with other trainee soldiers, before he’d been given any real responsibility. He hadn’t had the time after that, had been too devoted to the cause of the First Order, and his previous experiences had made him think that he wasn’t really missing much.

He had apparently been astonishingly wrong. Ren’s lips were warm and so, so soft, but the way he pressed himself against Hux, the strength of his grip and the steady pressure were irresistible, and the contrast was making Hux’s head spin. Hux grabbed the front of Ren’s stupid robe tightly, then realized that wasn’t nearly enough and wrapped his arms around the other man.

He was so broad, he was so solid. Oh, hell, he was so _warm_.

Somehow Hux’s back had ended up against the cavern wall behind him, and Ren was curled slightly around him, pressing him backward. The fact that Ren was taller than him had once been irritating, but now it just made him feel… _Cared for_ , his brain supplied, before he recognized that thought as preposterous and skittered away from it with the last bits of self-preservation he could scrape up.

Hux tangled the fingers of one hand in Ren’s hair, and allowed himself to admit that he’d been wanting to do that since he’d first seen how thick and dark and eye-catching it was. Ren responded by putting one hand on the small of Hux’s back, covering an alarming amount of space with the wide spread of his fingers, and pulling Hux more closely to him, sliding one of his legs between Hux’s. 

Hux made a sound that was a little more high-pitched than he would have liked, but it was alright because Ren moaned low in his throat and it was the single most thrilling thing Hux had ever experienced. It was alright, everything was alright, why the hell hadn’t he done this before, he could have been kissing this ridiculous infuriating man this whole time…

Ren pulled his face away from Hux’s, which was a terrible idea for a lot of reasons but did have the advantage of giving Hux an opportunity to haul in a breath.

There were about a thousand questions in Hux’s mind, but he wasn’t able to voice any of them. He just stared dumbly at Ren, whose eyes were really so very dark. He had a slight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, and Hux could see his eyes were wide and perhaps a bit unsettlingly wild.

“I know,” Ren said quietly, then leaned in and pressed his mouth to Hux’s neck, which really wasn’t fair.

“Know… what?” Hux managed to get out.

“I know the way out of here,” Ren said, and scraped his teeth against a spot just below Hux’s ear. “I’ve felt it. Through the Force.” 

Hux blinked, and slowly, sluggishly managed to get his mind to sort through that information. 

“Wait, wait,” he said at last, putting his hands on Ren’s shoulders and refusing to let himself get distracted by how broad they were, how he could feel the muscle moving under the skin… “Wait,” he said again. “You’ve found a way for us to get out of here? We could… We could get out now?”

Ren looked at him for a moment, but gradually his eyes seemed to return to clarity and he seemed to grasp what he had said, as well. “Yes.” He nodded sharply and took a step back. Hux almost wanted to pull him back in again, but he didn’t. “Yes. I can lead us there. We should go.”

Hux knew Ren was right. They had to get moving. Hux knew his reactions were absurd. But he still couldn’t help but be a little disappointed when Ren pulled away from him.

***

It wasn’t Ren’s first kiss, exactly. Well, it was, of course, but it wasn’t Be— _no_ , he cut himself off, he wouldn’t think that name. It wasn’t the first kiss that this body had experienced. There had been fumbling attempts, experiments, dares with other kids in the Republic, even other apprentices of his old Master, before Ren had changed, before the weight of Snoke in his mind had altered him to such an extent that other kids had wanted to keep their distance.

So it wasn’t the first time he had experienced coming so close to another person. But it was the first time he’d done _this_ , whatever _this_ was, some singular and completely unexpected experience that he had thrown himself into without really thinking about what the result would be.

He had wanted this, he realized with a quickly subsumed spike of fear. He wasn’t supposed to want things like this. But some part of him had. It was possible he had been wanting to do this with _someone_ since even before he had been thrown into the same space as Hux.

There didn’t seem to be any quenching this; the closer he came to Hux, the even closer than that he wanted to come, and it seemed impossible that he would ever be satisfied.

Hux’s composure was cracking, too. It made him feel vaguely guilty, somewhere deep down, as if he had taken something from Hux and changed him in a way he wasn’t supposed to. Neither of them was supposed to be like this. They were like two broken-down vehicles that were being overgrown by grass and vines, they were becoming chaos and randomness, and yet it was all moving so much faster and with so much more devastating power than he remembered life and nature having. This wasn’t like anything that he remembered.

Part of his mind was completely present, unable to focus on anything but a few points of light where he was coming into contact with Hux, where the world was becoming warmer and spilling over into him like something liquid. But part of his mind was somewhere else entirely, spreading out across the Light Side as it embedded itself in every part of the caves, the desert, and, much as he wished it wasn’t the case, the two of them, as well.

And as his consciousness spread through the Light Side like a drop of ink in a pool of water, he found himself intimately aware of the caves, the stone that made them up, the weaknesses that allowed gaps and passageways, the life that scurried all throughout, and…

The places where the caves met the open air. 

_Why didn’t I do this before?_ he thought, and he couldn’t tell whether he meant using the Light Side or kissing his antagonistic co-commander. Possibly both.

He pulled back and met Hux’s eyes, and was appalled to find that he was smiling at the other man. Hux was smiling slightly, too, seeming a little dazed.

It took them such an absurdly long time, both of their minds distracted and weakened, to realize that they should be moving, should be _escaping_. How could this have taken them over so completely that it overrode their self-preservation. 

Ren had the entirely uncomfortable thought that this might have been how his parents, or the parents he had had before he had fled that life, had once felt, the first time they had kissed. He had been told that story long before, when he had still thought his parents were heroes, larger-than-life creatures who could do anything. The thought that he shared something with them, that he was re-treading their ground, felt like he was being doused in cold water, and gave him the anger (or the despair, maybe) to pull himself out of that feeling, to drag himself away from the Light Side.

They made their way in silence, and Ren put himself back together as they walked, putting the barriers and facades back into place where they belonged, forcing his mind back into the well-worn, functional patterns he had been so careful to create. He could feel Hux doing the same next to him.

Ren tried to keep his distance from Hux, tried to make it clear that nothing had changed between them. But as they approached the surface, the passage they were in started to arc upward more and more steeply, the floor becoming more uneven and rock-strewn. Hux’s pace slowed compared to Ren’s, and when he stumbled, Ren took a step toward him and caught him without even thinking about it.

They stared at each other for a long moment, but the passage was only going to become more difficult, and Hux had been hit more times than Ren had.

Needs must. Ren sighed and moved Hux’s hand to his own shoulder so the other man could steady himself.

It didn’t mean anything. They just had to get out of here. That was all.

Ren tried very hard not to notice the warmth of Hux’s hand on his shoulder, and when that proved a losing battle, decided that at least he could try not to enjoy it.

***

Phasma had her formation move out at double-time. When it became clear that the Resistance had retreated, at least for the moment, she took the risk of splitting her troopers into units, trying to cover more ground. The sooner they got out of here, the less likely it would be that the Republic would send a larger formation. Or just bring a few artillery pieces to wipe them out from a distance.

Phasma generally hated the sound of comms channel feedback. But she couldn’t even express the sudden swoop of emotion she felt when the receiver in her ear squealed and gave a crackle as a new transmitter was added to the command channel. She heard a familiar voice say, “There! We’re in range again! Captain Phasma, do you read me?”

Phasma came to a stop, took a deep breath, and smiled.

“Loud and clear, General,” she answered.

They weren’t far off. Soon, Phasma was watching as the figures of General Hux and Lord Ren resolved themselves out of the dust and heat haze. The relief was so strong it almost bowled her over.

That relief was quickly swamped by concern as she saw that her commanding officer was leaning against Ren, seeming to hold himself up with a hand on Ren’s shoulder, wincing as he walked. Ren’s expression was thunderously dour, and although Hux was attempting to appear as calm as he did on the command deck of the Finalizer, his teeth were clenched and his brow furrowed with some negative feeling. Phasma couldn’t tell if it was pain, anger, or worry.

“I have to say, I’m glad to see you, Captain,” Hux said.

“The feeling is mutual, General,” Phasma answered. “We were attacked by the Republic while you were underground. We repulsed the attack, but they’re certain to return. We need to get out of here and back to the Finalizer as quickly as possible.” She hurried forward to take Hux’s weight away from Ren.

Ren stalked away aggressively, every line of his body tense, as if he couldn’t wait to get away from them. Hux made an exasperated sound.

Phasma contacted her units and set up a rendezvous point, then let the rest of her troopers fan out protectively around them as they moved so that she could speak quietly to Hux with a little privacy.

“Glad to see you made it out, sir.”

“It was a near thing in places,” Hux answered, a bit distractedly.

“And you managed not to kill each other.”

Hux jerked as if he’d been electrocuted and turned to look at her, startled. “What?” he said, his voice a little higher than normal in his agitation. “No, why would you think we would… Oh, you said ‘kill.’”

Phasma looked at him, her eyes narrowed. Hux’s eyes were wide, and he seemed to be trying very hard to keep them fixed on her face, rather than darting back and forth.

“What did you think I said?” she asked suspiciously. 

“It’s not important,” Hux said, waving a hand airily. It was not convincing. 

She watched him for a few more moments, then decided to let it go. She’d figure it out eventually. She could be patient.

“You know,” she said, keeping her voice low, “if I’d known you just needed a survival situation to force you to cooperate, I could have trapped you somewhere weeks ago.”

“That sounds like insubordination to me, Captain,” Hux said in a mock-serious voice, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Well, you’ll just have to throw me in the brig, sir,” she answered in the same tone.

“I’ll be sure to do that,” Hux said. “As soon as you’ve helped me win this war, of course.” 

***

Strange things happened in the heat of the moment. Adrenaline, fear of death, relief at being alive, all of those things combined could create the potential for people to do things they never otherwise would have done. Every battle commander had to understand this, had to take it into account and work it into their plans.

It could make ordinary people with no combat experience into courageous heroes, it could make people who had trained all their lives for battle into cowards. No one knew how they would react until they were actually in a life-or-death situation. 

It probably wasn’t even that out of the ordinary for people in life-or-death situations to kiss whoever was nearby. Even if that person was someone they didn’t trust. Even if that person was someone they hated.

Even if that person had saved his life when he hadn’t needed to. Even if that person was amazing in a fight and devastatingly strong and had some surprisingly interesting thoughts and would never seem the same now that Hux knew how he looked under his mask and.

Damn it. This train of thought was getting out of hand.

The point was, Hux reflected, what had happened in that cave probably wasn’t that unusual in the grand scheme of things. Strange things happened in the heat of the moment.

There was a way to make sense of what had happened in that cave. There was a way to quantify it and qualify it and fit it in to his sense of the world. And once he had done that, he could… He could let it go.

It had only been the heat of the moment. There wasn’t any way it would happen again. Ren wouldn’t want to make it happen again. And of course Hux didn’t want that, either. He had too much to do, he had a war to fight and his place in the victory to assure. He didn’t want anything from Ren except for him to stay out of his way.

It would never happen again. He could let it go. He wasn’t put out about that, at all.

It meant nothing to Hux.

He curled tighter in his bed, very carefully avoiding examining his emotions too closely. He had been kept busy for a while, getting his field unit back to the Finalizer, being checked over by the on-board medic, completing and filing his preliminary after-action report of the whole incident, finally giving in to Phasma’s respectful but firm insistence that he rest before he filled out a more-extensive report. He’d even managed to drag out taking a short, cold shower, examining his coat for any spots that needed repair before hanging it up, polishing the scuffs out of his boots. He had nothing left to occupy his thoughts but the rest he was supposed to be getting.

He was strangely and uncomfortably aware of his body, of his skin and his pulse under it. It was ridiculous. His body was a tool, and he had only ever paid enough attention to it to keep it from completely breaking down at a crucial moment.

But at that moment, he couldn’t stop pulling the thin sheet and blanket tighter, then throwing them half off. The water from his still-wet hair was dripping down his neck. Ren had kissed him there. It hadn’t been that long ago. Just a matter of hours, really. He touched his fingertips to his neck, then to his lips, as if expecting something to feel different, something to justify the fact that he couldn’t shake the encounter out of his mind.

What the hell was happening to him? He winced and buried his face in his pillow. This was ridiculous. It was unacceptable. He wished that Ren had never come to the Finalizer, that Hux had just been left alone to do his job.

The worst part was that it would never happen again. No, what was he thinking, that wasn’t the worst part, the worst part was that it had happened at all. But he felt as if all the… kissing, he winced again at even just thinking the word, had just been a start, and that without the continuation of the act, however it might have been continued, he was just left with something unfinished hanging over him. How was he supposed to get this out of his system if…?

But that wouldn’t happen. It had been the heat of the moment. It meant nothing, it would never be repeated. Ren had probably forgotten about it already. Hux should do the same. Hux _had to_ do the same.

Around and around his thoughts circled, no matter how hard he tried to put the matter to rest and just sleep. He’d never been particularly good at sleeping, even at the best of times, and an attempt to classify an experience that had introduced new feelings into his carefully calibrated system of appropriate emotional responses did not exactly constitute the best of times. He squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. 

And then there was a knock on his door.

Very, very few people aboard the Finalizer could even access the deck where the officers quarters were laid out, and even fewer ever knocked on the door to his quarters, for any reason. Preposterously, Hux was slammed with a spike of adrenaline that was completely out of proportion to the actual situation.

It could be Phasma, coming to make sure he was actually resting. Or it could be another subordinate officer with an urgent, confidential report that he had to see. Both of those options made sense, both of those options could be fit into his understanding of life up to this point.

There was no way it could be Ren. He knew that, it was as plain as day.

And yet he still stumbled as he scrambled out of bed, his limbs unaccountably clumsy as he struggled into his uniform trousers and slung his shirt over his shoulders. He didn’t even stop to check his reflection, didn’t even care whether he looked remotely presentable.

He knew that Ren wouldn’t be on the other side of that door. He knew that with every fiber of his logical, sensible, mission-oriented being. It made no sense for Ren to have come to his quarters. He _knew_.

But there was apparently another part of him that knew something different. Because he wasn’t even remotely surprised when he opened his door and found Ren on the other side of it. 

It seemed, somehow, inevitable. 

***

Ren should have stayed in the cabin he had been given aboard the Finalizer. He should have sat as he had done so many nights before, his back against the slightly curved, warm metal of the wall, his legs crossed in front of him, his hands resting open on his knees, his mind deep in the flow of the Dark Side, improving his clarity and his resolve moment by moment.

It was how he had started the evening. It had seemed, for a moment, that he would succeed, his mind drawn into the currents of electricity and gasoline combustion and the routine ticking and whirring and clunking of the Finalizer all around him. If there was any place that he could reconnect to the Dark Side, where he belonged, it would be in a vehicle like this. He could put this whole disconcerting experience behind him. 

But even as he tried, something crawled under his skin, something vibrant and irresistible and _alive alive alive_. Restlessness swirled around him and made it nearly impossible for him to sit still. Something was pulling at him, offering peace if he just slipped under the surface of it, but for all he recognized what it was, he knew it wasn’t the Dark Side. He couldn’t give in.

He lurched to his feet in frustration and a hint of fear. He had to move, to _do_ something, to quiet the war going on in his mind.

He stormed out of his cabin and started walking, and only realized too late that what he had taken for aimlessness was in fact terribly purposeful. He had never been outside this particular door before, but he knew whose it was. He had mapped out the entirety of the Finalizer within his first days aboard; he knew what was behind every door.

He should go. This was a bad idea. Some seductive part of him kept whispering that this was a good thing, that he could get whatever this was out of his system, confront it head-on and defeat it. Another part of him was terrified that he couldn’t actually do that, that all he would accomplish here was to drag himself closer to falling back into the Light Side of the Force.

He should leave. He knocked on the door instead, rapping sharply, angrily or maybe just eagerly.

When Hux answered the door, Ren would sever any personal connection between them. He would demand that their relationship remain completely professional from this point on. He would put things _right_ , restore the way things were before any of this had happened.

The door swung open, moving heavily and with a faint protest of un-oiled hinges. Ren’s dread was swallowed up by his excitement almost before he realized it was happening.

Hux stood behind the door, his expression both startled and resigned. He was no longer wearing his coat; in fact, his shirt was unbuttoned over his undershirt, and he was barefoot. His hair was wet, the gel washed away and the strands drying haphazardly around his face.

Ren could see Hux’s pulse beating fast at his throat, there was chaotic, unmanageable _life_ coiling through Ren’s veins, and even the knowledge that Ren was suffering a catastrophic defeat in his own private war couldn’t keep him from asking, his voice low and rough, “Can I come in?”

A moment of hesitation, that was all, before Hux stepped back and gestured toward the room behind him. “If you like.”

As soon as the door slammed shut, they had their arms around each other, their lips pressed together, and Ren’s heart was pounding against his ribs. Soon, he knew, he would have to fix this. He would have to redouble his efforts to banish the Light and reaffirm his connection to the Dark. This was a setback, a disaster, this was something he should never have allowed to happen. 

He would be able to think that and actually mean that, soon. Tomorrow, perhaps. It was difficult to think of anything else when he was busy tumbling backward onto Hux’s bed, and pulling Hux himself after him. When he was sliding his hands up under Hux’s shirt desperately, trying to pull him closer, closer, closer.

It was far too difficult to think of anything else.


End file.
